[ubuntu] Local lan DNS suffix resolution problem

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Hi All,
I have been plagued by an annoying DNS issue for a long time and was wondering if anyone has any solutions.
Our corporate LAN has a DHCP server which assigns my PC's IPs as well as a domain suffix details. My resolv.conf ends up like this:
# Generated by NetworkManager
domain aa.domain.local
search aa.domain.local
nameserver 10.0.0.1
nameserver 10.0.0.2
Problem is as such. When connecting to lan servers I can successfully connect using just the hostname, eg: exchange
ping exchange
PING
(HowTos)

This is a bit of a weird one. I'm running ubuntu on a Windows domain. If I type "ping server" I can ping correctly and I can connect without any problems. It looks up my search domain (domain.local) and everything is hunky dory.